By Nauman Khan
Publication Date: 2026-10-09 15:10:00
IBM (IBM) received a Hold rating from Truist Securities on Friday as the firm began covering the technology company with a $240 price target.
The move puts the focus on whether its AI-related offerings can generate customer demand soon enough to offset execution concerns, according to a Friday analyst note.
Analyst Arvind Ramnani sees IBM as having several routes into enterprise AI. Its mainframe systems handle transaction workloads, watsonx Orchestrate coordinates tasks across AI models, and Red Hat software supports applications across private data centers and cloud platforms. IBM also provides consulting to help businesses put AI tools into use.
The central question is when corporate investment in AI infrastructure will begin translating into more demand for IBM. Truist highlighted uncertainty about that timeline alongside the company’s second-quarter 2026 results, which missed expectations and preceded a sell-off of more than 20%.
Following the decline, IBM trades at about 17…